mardi gras

The Carnival or Carnaval season already started. In Venezuela we celebrate carnival a lot, there are parties, costumes and vacations! I have so many fond memories of them growing up… We don’t get to celebrate it here in the USA so when #CarnavalCrayola and #LaColectiva asked me to create some Carnaval crafts ideas with Crayola products I immediately said yes! It’s a great way to teach the kids about it and at the same time have fun.

I told them about how people dress up in costumes and have parties. They thought about Halloween and they asked me if it was scary. That was interesting… During the Carnaval people dress up how they want, it can be scary or not but the whole holiday is very festive.

I got these three products fromCrayola at Walmart: Kids washable paint, 96 count crayons, sidewalk chalk and came up with these easy and fun carnaval craft ideas:

Colorful Masks made with Crayons

Carnaval Posters

Carnaval Chalkboards

Carnaval Posters

We started making these first so they could have enough time to dry plus the kids were the most anxious to paint. You will need:

White poster board

Washable paint

Pencil

Paintbrushes

Instructions:

I also got the big white poster boards at Walmart, draw on them with a pencil some confetti and streamers, nothing too complicated

Tell the kids to paint them (using the washable paints) however they wish. Adrian had fun painting his streamer with a pattern! (I think he has some designer in him, I promise I didn’t direct him to that at all!)

Let the posters dry and then hang them as backdrop for your celebration!

Tip: Even though the paints are washable I make the kids wear their shirts backwards when painting just in case!

Colorful Masks made with Crayons

Meanwhile the kids were painting I started with this one. You will need the following:

Crayola crayons in bright colors

Pencil sharpener

Wax paper

Iron

Scrap paper or kraft paper

Scissors or/and a craft knife

A hole puncher

Colorful ribbon

Instructions:

Start sharpening the crayons letting the shavings go on top of a wax paper sheet big (about 10 x 12″). Make sure to use bright colors, maybe only 2 dark colors so the masks turn out very festive, The kids can help here choosing colors and if they are big enough like Adrian in this case, they can help sharpening

Spread them all on the wax paper, not too thick, not too thin

Cover with another wax paper sheet and then place kraft paper on top

Iron with medium setting, it melts super fast, do it quick and check several times just in case

Print a carnaval mask template (here is the carnaval mask I used), cut and place on top of the melted crayons (don’t take off the wax paper!)

With scissors or a craft knife cut the mask, punch holes on the sides and attach a piece of ribbon on each side with a knot

They LOVED the masks! After this craft they wanted to start playing but I made them wait and we still made the next one before they put them on…

Carnaval Chalkboards

This one is super easy, I thought it would be cool to make a little prop for the carnaval party and for the photos, like a mini photo-booth kind of?!

Grab little chalkboards (I actually had these little chalkboards at home but if you don’t have something like these, find them where they sell the educational toys for kids or at the office supply area they might have them too) and then use the Crayola sidewalk chalks.The fun part about these chalks is that they come in the shape of crayons and in beautiful colors! Give them free range, Adrian made the heart one, I just told him to write Carnaval and a mask, the rest he decided himself!

And after this then it was the official “Carnavales” at home! We put some music on and started dancing, I had one on too, too bad you can’t see me but we even played “Freeze” while dancing, the kids loved the whole carnaval craft session and the celebration.

What I loved the most was that at the end of the day Adrian told me: Thank you Mami, your crafts are always the best!!!! How cute!! And Maya said that tomorrow we were going to do it all over again 😉

Have you celebrated Carnaval with crafts before?

Disclosure: I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper amplification for Collective Bias and its advertiser. All opinions, ideas and stories are 100% my own.